


Shelter

by Anonyma



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-05
Updated: 2019-10-05
Packaged: 2020-11-24 12:26:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20907644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anonyma/pseuds/Anonyma
Summary: Names have meanings, don't they?





	Shelter

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little drabble of my ocs from Shisha's perspective. Sidon (world hopper, bounty hunter) crashed into his universe and saved him from his death sentence. He's a fire elemental with poor control. He got overwhelmed and burnt down a village and now he thinks he's unlovable. Lol. ANYWAY enjoy I guess

“I can help.” 

Her hands ghost over mine, and I can tell she's desperate to hold them, but she's trying to respect my space. Either that, or she doesn't want to get burnt again. 

I make myself sick. 

“There's nothing you or anyone can do,” I reply in a quiet grumble. 

“That's not true.” 

She ignores the tiredness in my voice as she always has. She doesn't know exhaustion, she never runs out of energy, no matter what life throws at her. It's disturbing in the most wonderful way. 

“I don't see how you could come up with anything I haven't already,” I insist. 

“That's the thing,” she counters, “you need a fresh pair of eyes.”

Her blank stare should be vacant by all means, but it holds an unseen vitality and spark that makes it hard for me not to believe her. But I don't want to believe her. 

I know she's wrong. 

“Why bother? With any of this, seriously?”

“`Cause.”

That's the only answer I'm going to get out of her at present. Her mind is elsewhere, working out ways to help me. Out in this desert, this purgatory that was once meant to remind me of home, she's all I have. 

I don't deserve her. 

I'm not a good person. She saved my life, my worthless life, and stayed beside me after that despite having better places to be. And how do I repay her? I burn her. She gets too close in the middle of an episode, or I'm too excited, or I'm startled or scared or worried and I burn her. 

I can't stop doing it. I don't know how. 

I tell myself to control it, to hold it down, but it always wins. I become overwhelmed by the memory of my failure and it bleeds out of me. I'm a disgrace. 

"Hey, you okay?”

My silence worries her. When will I stop fucking up? 

“Yeah.”

“Okay, cool. I'm gonna keep thinkin’. There's gotta be some solution!”

I'm briefly brought back to a conversation we had regarding my name. Shelter. The irony of it. She has a symbolic name, she's living up to it as all her people do, but me? 

_“I'm not a shelter, I'm a… A slaughterhouse, I guess.”_

_“Hah! Well, you got your whole life to fit into your name, Shish.”_

I suppose that's why the nickname came to be. Everyone knows I'm the furthest thing from safe. 

She's still thinking. We don't want to leave this world; she worries something will happen to me if I'm too far from the land of my birth. I only agree to stay because it's what she wants. Eventually, though, I know the quest for a solution to my problem is going to lead us somewhere else. Somewhere far. 

Her furrowing brow makes me feel immense guilt. She's wasting precious emotional investment on me. She's giving far too much. 

“Let's worry about it later, okay? The stars are about to come out and I want to focus on those with you.”

I can see that saying ‘with you’ has caused an instant change in her demeanor. She lights up and grins- I think it makes her happiest to feel a part of something. I'm glad to have offered some momentary happiness.   
  
We sit in silence as the sky clears and shows dozens upon dozens of twinkling lights, and I'm concerned at first that I've made things awkward again… but then I feel her head on my shoulder. 

For a second, I think I might burn her again from shock. 

But the flames never come. Instead, a gentle warmth is running through me. It's unlike anything I've felt before, but the closest thing I can compare it to is being held by my mother as a kid. It takes me a minute to realize I feel _calm_. 

I hope she can't see me crying. The last thing she needs is for me to be even more of a burden. 


End file.
